Seven Passions: Family Faith

Well, we have made it. A week later, we are sitting at the end of the beginning. After discussing today's final core passion we'll need to decide where to go from here -- or at least I'll have to decide where to go from here. My life really has to become an unrelenting (remember, intractable) pursuit of passion for Jesus. Without that kind of dedication and obsession (I like how Barna says that) to that goal...well, without that it just seems that I'm missing the entire point of my life, the point of me being created in the first place. I need to become obsessed!

We're finishing up our look at the seven core passions of the first Church and of modern-day Revolutionaries as read in George Barna's Revolution. Our final stop on this short but very meaningful journey is Family Faith.

Christian families taught the ways of God in their homes every day. Parents were expected to model a Spirit-led lifestyle for their children, and families were to make their home a sanctuary for God. In a very real sense, the home was the early Church -- supplemented by larger gatherings in the Temple and elsewhere, but never replaced by what took place in the homes of believers. (pp24-25)

It has become more and more obvious lately as we have made the jump from zero to three kids in the course of a blink that this passion is also quite challenging. I used to daydream before of what it would look like to have family Bible studies (something I didn't do growing up), family prayer times, deep conversations with my kids about the theological of the Incarnation or other such spiritual complexities. In the spirit of sweet Dorothy, "we aren't in dreamland anymore, bloggers!"It's a challenge, it takes work to keep our children's interest in much of what we're talking about [don't know if that's the case for any of you parents, but it is here]. We can get 10 seconds into a "deep conversation" about the importance of studying math only to get this kind of reply, "Did you see that fly over there dancing around on the window?" While it makes me laugh now it makes me, well, not laugh when it happens.

We have also found another thing to be true about our kids. They respond to our emotions. They know what we are passionate about and oddly enough, they become at very least interested in those things. Application? If we are growing in our passion for Christ it will be infectious...not only outside the walls of our homes but especially inside as well! When we take the time to pray, talk about God, read passages from His Word with our families, it will become evident that these are things of great importance to us, things we are passionate about, things we are obsessed with. And as a result, they will be infected with this obsession as well.

Instead of giving you any challenges I will just declare my own. I am being challenged to build slowly, not trying to open my own bet sefer for my kids here overnight. My motivation is that I want to be able to help them grow in Christ. I want to be a part of their discovery of who He is and of the reasons why they want to surrender their lives to following Him. I don't want them to have to rely on the church or the pastor to disciple them. And through all of this I want them to know that this is how they can raise their children in Christ. It definitely can turn into an incredible cycle of discipleship -- a model for our churches to follow!

What will today look like in our family? How will I "be Jesus" to my family and how will I usher them closer to Him? Obviously these are all choices to be made...not just possibilities. If I say yes to God's challenges then they will happen. Like so many aspects of our Christian journey, it all depends on me.